


Chapter 4

by Adge



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 19:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20441192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adge/pseuds/Adge





	Chapter 4

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stand Still Stay Silent](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/514049) by Minna Sundberg. 

# Chapter 4

From Swedish woods and Suomi’s lakes  
Tuuri skald-maid, scout-cousin dour  
Clear-eyed Lalli, cleanser Emil,  
By three federates through fearful ways  
Conducted safe to the Danish-built  
Sea-bridge wardstead. There waits the fourth  
Of their trip's planners, Trond fox-wily,  
With the final pair: fierce-heart Sigrun  
From deep Norway’s undaunted halls  
Their fell captain; and cook Mikkel   
Sturdy, massive, many-crafted wight  
From Bornholm farms. Babbling Tuuri,  
Eager skald-maid, skirls at their height,  
Pleasing the two. But their replies miss  
Doubtful Emil; the Danish speech  
No sweetness has to Swedish ears  
Or to frommed-tongued friendless Lalli  
Who silence keeps in the social mix  
Of greetings misheard and ungrasped words.  
Uncomprehending, captain Sigrun  
The lay questions; can she lead a crew  
Without one tongue? So Tuuri skald,   
Grasping all speech, spells to the group   
That language bars must let them not  
From their common task. Their captain Eide,  
Fierce-hand Sigrun, her folk courages,  
Declares confidence with clapped shoulder  
From a swiping hand that Suomi-bred  
Lalli far-homed, lone-working scout,  
Treats as uncouth; comrade Emil   
Minds their trouncing the train-ettin’s shock;  
Guide and cleanser, together now  
Fray-sealed comrades; friendship asserts  
With a cordial fist – furious, Lalli  
Shuns his gesture as the shield-house lord,  
Loud-voiced admiral, Olsen the Dane,  
Deplores the waste of the water-fort  
To civilians lent since invasion failed  
Land to reconquer. Loud he shows them   
The field-crawler, cramped and ancient  
Trundling cat-tank, their transport, wain,  
Homestead, shield-wall, shelter and castle  
In the Silent Lands. Sad-hearted Tuuri   
Hurts that it's tiny. Haughty Emil  
Broods on a mirror, which breaks and falls.   
For shame he affirms the fault to be old;  
His point to show picks up the glass   
And with careless force casts it aside –   
An unguided throw over guard and rail   
To the lower deck, to the loading bay  
Where a worker sorts and signs for lade   
The required goods to equip the team.   
The mirror-struck wight mixes the tags –   
Undetected fault. Tuuri fordoes  
Her one keepsake; her kin's picture  
Cracks at the threshold, across Tuuri –   
Lalli and Onni left undamaged –   
Wakens Tuuri, wend-maid eager,  
To her cherished home, childhood's refuge,   
Keuruu mere-fort. She admits to her kin,  
Noita Lalli, her need for speech   
With her mage brother in the mere-girt lands,  
Hiraeth to quell. Healer Mikkel  
Sees Emil’s face the first time clear   
Notices the bruise from the night fray,   
Offering treatment; Emil, haughty,   
Swede-tongued, doubting, Danish mishears  
As unprovoked slurs. While divided they stare  
The rest explore the road-plodder  
And stow provisions. They stand ready,  
Tender farewells; wain-taught Tuuri  
Cedes the driving to Sigrun earl,  
But the spear-maid spills hoarding-stacks,  
Misses the roadways, demolishes walls;  
So she returns the seat. Tuuri hand-skald,  
Steers the cat-tank on the stark sky-road   
To the Silent Lands and their long purpose.  
The crossing gives time for the crew to share  
Their past stories and to state their skills;  
Sigrun main-handed, most best warrior,  
Hall-earl’s daughter, dived at the chance  
To fight new marks; Mikkel erst-long  
Fought in Dane-war, farm-travail bored –   
But the rotting bridge interrupts the tales  
As Tuuri eludes the collapsing piers  
And crunched car-way; the crumbled deck  
And flailing guys their gear threaten  
Till asylum found at the sunken reach  
Of the drowned tunnel. Dreams the sleeping  
Lalli scout-mage lead to the flet  
Of his woning-stead, willow-girt raft-home  
In the mage-kingry. His cousin seeking,  
Onni ward-mage, he walks the board-path,  
To the stone-arched way, the water’s gate  
Through the rock barrier, and reaches the shore  
Of the wide cloud-mere, where wise under stars  
Seidhkona and noita know in the silence   
The call of friend and the catch of foe.  
With his voice’s main he invokes Onni  
Over the mage-sea. No message replies  
Over bubbling deep, but a bird fluttering,   
Wide-faring tern, his attention draws  
To a red-braided wight, running the strand  
Fearless, unwitting. Wise-hearted scout  
Lalli calls him, but catches unware,  
Summoning foes from the seal’s highway,  
From the horde-deep hands to gulf him  
In the trolls’ lich-sea. Lalli, untrounced  
By the mer-vermin, his voice’s power   
Unleashes, shends the shuck-born horde,  
Shoots through the waves to the shore’s welcome  
And dances for joy. At the door homeward  
To his woning-stead he stirs in sleep   
So Emil friend, with anxious hand,  
Gentles Lalli, as the lapping waves  
Tell of the end of the tunnel-road  
At the last defence, where the lost Danes  
Of Kastrup's fall are carved by name   
On the sad gate-wings. Sigrun, eager   
To tread under foot the troll domain  
And defy her foes, forces her rank  
On leer Mikkel, demanding the gate   
Be opened wide ere evening's gloom  
Forbids their sight. Banks of concrete   
Clad in tangle climbing allow  
To first long view of infested streets;  
The way forward to fame and gold –   
Or doomed lich-life. But darkling shades  
Let the trail-fellows from the troll-haunted  
Kastrup's sad field, so the comrades return  
To the warm cat-tank. Canny night-gang  
Scout-mage Lalli through skald Tuuri   
At Sigrun's word is sent to find   
A cunning road and secure refuge   
For their first seeking in the Silent Lands.


End file.
